Varese, deer attack the gardens, eat vegetables and fruit
Once upon a time there were wild boars, but now there are also deer and, apparently, they are just as ravenous. So much so that to appease the empty stomachs, the voluminous ungulates eat practically everything they find, unwittingly taking the license to draw from the vegetable gardens cultivated with so much love by the people who live in the First Chapel to climb.
"It's not like they eat everything, they leave the stems and roots," says Massimo Realini, a city councilor who lives right in the area hit by the deer raids. He himself was an eyewitness. "They nibbled all the pumpkins and made the salad completely disappear - he says - They also eat the leaves and everything attached to the low branches of the fruit trees, figs and plums for sure".
The neighbors realized that the passage in their gardens was repeating itself, probably the offending deer passed three nights in a row. At the fourth, the suspicious noises coming from the garden made the councilor wake up too, who, looking out, caught the "criminal" red-handed. «I reported it in the Province, the ungulates go here either for hunger or for whatever reason. I realize that it seems like a small problem but it is not so much an economic question: these are things that ruin the work of months and that cannot even be recovered because they are seasonal crops ».
In the province, meanwhile, the report has been received, even if it is not the first time that the problem has reached the ears of the councilor Bruno Specchiarelli. Just tonight he will meet the president of the Campo dei Fiori park, Giuseppe Barra, to talk about the overcrowding of wild boars with related damage to crops and will also be able to start making some assessments on the presence of deer.
«We know that roe deer are definitely on the rise - explains Specchiarelli - and the excessive number of wild boars is a fact that we have known for some time, so we already have the culling plan. It is true that the deer have increased slightly, but the problem is that now there is no action. The withdrawal activity starts in August and continues until September, until then we can only cut down if a situation of particular danger arises ».
In the meantime, the president of the park outlines the conceivable solutions to improve the coexistence between humans and ungulates, which to tell the truth are not many. «We too have grasped these critical points - explains Giuseppe Barra - and we have opened a discussion table with the department and with the University of Insubria. This week we will meet to understand what the numbers are and how to intervene to reduce the discomfort.
The removal of some animals is not excluded if needed, but alternative solutions can be evaluated such as electrified wire to protect crops ». In short, the solutions are being studied.
source: www.laprovinciadivarese.it